IIn my Spiritual Formation class, we have been talking about Spiritualities that come from the indigenous peoples of North America, from the Latinx community, and the African American community. One central theme is the connection to the land. This theme resonated with me and started me to think about how I feel an emotional even spiritual connection to the places where my family has lived. The place where this sense is the most powerful is the place where I was born. It is a place where my mother's family lived for 100 years. Every time I return there, I find a sense of peace and connectedness that is not in the same in any other place. I then reflected on all the places I have visited where my ancestors lived. I ave felt a sense of completion and connection walking on the ground where those who live in and through me lived and walked. Pushing it even further out, to the time I went to Mozambique and a quiet and straightforward resonance with the home of the most ancient and early ancestors. The very parents of all humans and how that is the same soil that forms me. That is the soil of my beginning, the soil of my being. I was inspired to write what some might call a poem, and others may be something not quite so polite. But here it is:
The soil of my beginnings
When I walk upon the places where my ancestors walked,
and feel the Earth beneath my feet:
I feel the vibrations of the footsteps as they walked the same paths,
as they ran to greet a friend or lover.
The sandy soil of this place gets between my toes
and into my shoes tying me to this place forever.
The mother of us all, Gaia, sends me memories
of those who lie below within her embrace.
She whispers their secrets, of their love of her and her love of them.
She calls to me, binding me to them and to her.
Telling me never to forget from where I came.
Never forget that I am not only come from the soil
this place and the memories recent and ancient.
But also, to places beyond the Eastern sea,
to the soils of Europe, Asia, and the homeland of us all, Africa, our cradle.
We all come from her soil, we are connected in the body
and spirit in ways only those wise in the ways of the Mother can be.
She calls me and tells me that one day I too will return
to the soil of my beginning to the very soil of my being.
She and I will be once again one with the other,
and as I was created out of the soil of those who have come before.
I will become co-creator with her, and those who come after
will be fashioned out of the soil that is me.
The very soil of my being will be the soil of their beginning.
And we all live eternally as the essence of Gaia’s life and soul.

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